Cubensis
25th February 2008, 03:59
@OP: You are ignorant and have no grasp of how racism works. This is because you are an ignorant white.
Because I am under 25 posts I can not simply post a link to the point I am trying to make. Forgive me, I am quoting it here.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group"
Peggy McIntosh
Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us."
Daily effects of white privilege I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.
In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive.
I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.
In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.
For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one's race or sex.
Black Dagger
25th February 2008, 04:33
Does society as a whole discriminate against minorities? No.
I guess you can explain data like this then?
-Racism and the administration of justice - An overview of racism and racial discrimination across the world - Here (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engACT400202001?OpenDocument&of=THEMES%5CRACISM)
"This report illustrates how racial discrimination in the administration of justice
systematically denies certain people their human rights because of their colour, race,
ethnicity, descent (including caste) or national origin. Based on research conducted by Amnesty International in recent years, it shows that members of ethnic minorities often suffer torture, ill-treatment and harassment at the hands of the police. In many parts of the world they face unfair trials and discriminatory sentencing which puts them at increased risk of harsh punishments, including the death penalty."
-Lower standards for 'non-white' people in work, housing, education & health (Australia, Canada, New Zealand & UK) - Here (http://www.newint.org/issue145/facts.htm)
-On the racial income and education gap (USA) - Here (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/%7Ergibson/RACESTAT.htm)
-On the racial gap in health (USA) - Here (http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=581)
-Stats on racism in Malaysia across a broad range of areas such as education and work (Malaysia) - Here (http://twiart.blogspot.com/2006/03/55-interesting-facts-about-racism-in.html)
Discrimination from the cops & the 'justice' system:
-Cops Kill: Detailed reports on Aboriginal deaths in custody; including a broad analysis of race relations in Australia and the interaction between Aboriginal people and the police (Oz) Here (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/rciadic/)
-Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment (USA) - Here (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/articles/notequal.html)
see also:
~Race and Incarceration: A Preliminary Consideration (USA) Here (http://www.dcjustice.org/pdfs/RaceIncarceration.pdf)
-Racial disparities in sentencing (USA) - Here (http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/disparity.pdf)
-Racially Discriminatory Application of Death Penalty - Factual evidence of racial bias in death penalty cases and reasons why patterns of discrimination in capital sentencing persist. (USA) - Here (http://www.prisonsucks.com/scans/aclu_dp_factsheet4.pdf)
see also:
~Death by discrimination - the continuing role of race in capital cases (USA) - Here (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510462003)
-Racial Profiling: An Examination of Consent Searches and Contraband Hit Rates at Texas Traffic Stops (USA) - Here (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/racial_profiling_report_full.pdf)
see also:
~Racial Differences in Traffic Stops and Stop and Frisks (USA) - Here (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/04/29/racial-differences-in-traffic-stops-and-stop-and-frisks/)
~Minnesota Statewide Racial Profiling Study - Here (http://www.racialdisparity.org/files/Racial%20Profiling%20Study.pdf)
For more useful links on racial discrimination in the criminal 'justice' system in the USA check out Prison Sucks (http://www.prisonsucks.com/) and the Prison Policy Initiative Network (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/research.html)
Caste discrimination:
-A very detailed report on caste discrimination in Nepal - Here (http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/Missing%20Piece%20of%20the%20Puzzle.pdf)
-A very detailed report on caste discrimination against Dalits in India across a broad range of areas - Here (http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/chrgj-hrw.pdf)
see also:
~Alternate Report To The Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (similar to above, a detailed report on Caste discrimination against Dalits in India) - Here (http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/ncdhr0702.pdf)
~Combatting caste: A good overview of the origins and contemporary facets of caste in India (including statistics on discrimination against Dalits) - Here (http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/combatting_caste/)
~A short but very useful overview of the discrimination and prejudice faced by Dalits in India (includes statistics) - Here (http://idsn.org/Documents/asia/pdf/CastAnEye.pdf)
~'Untouchability' in Japan, The Buraku People of Japan - Here (http://www.dalits.nl/0612a.html)
-Dalit Women Speak Out Violence against Dalit Women in India - Here (http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/dalitwomenspeakout.pdf)
see also:
~Brief overview of the structural discrimination and social oppression faced by Dalit women - Here (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/comparl/deve/meetings_hr/20061218/manorama.pdf)
For more useful links on caste discrimination check out the documents page of the Dalits Network Netherlands (http://www.dalits.nl/pdf/dismantling.pdf)
Take Asians and Jews as an example. They're "model minorities." They've risen to the top in America and elsewhere, because this so called "institutional racism" is a myth designed to protect the feelings of unsuccessful minorities.I'll address your statement about Jewish people later, but first - 'Asians as a model minority'.
Essentially you've bought wholesale into the racist ideology of the United States. The 'model minority' myth as it is applied to Asian peoples in the US - like all racialised social constructs - is not 'natural' or factual - it's an essentialised, and false identity constructed to serve particular interests.
Indeed, as the essay below identifies - it was not too long ago that Asian peoples in the US were regarded as 'dangerous' etc. - these descriptions are discursively constructed over-time - they don't simply exist as reflections of 'reality' - nor are they permanent.
Check the bolded sections of this essay i wrote a few years ago (particularly 'The birth of a ‘model minority’? The Chinese and ‘racist love’ - 'Beyond the ‘yellow threat’- The emergence of the modern ‘model minority’ ):
Two ‘western’ constructions dominate the history of Asian/non-Asian race relations in United States (US). The first and more long-stranding construction is of the ‘perpetual foreigner’, a dangerous moral and social ‘evil’, a ‘yellow threat’ to American society. The second construction is of a ‘model minority’, a group- that although ‘different’ to White Americans nevertheless lives and works within a paradigm of so-called ‘American bedrock values’. The ‘model minority’ reinforces the moral and social order within society, those who work hard will prospers accordingly. In this prosperity, the ‘model minority’ provides a glowing example (‘model’) for all of the nation’s minority groups to aspire. Intriguingly, both of these constructions refer to the same group, termed broadly, ‘Asian-Americans’, that is American citizens of Asian-descent.
This essay will analyse these two constructions as examples of American/non-Asian assertions of an Asian ‘other’. That is, how and why White America has perceived and portrayed Asian people, focusing in general sense, from the 1850s to 1950s for the ‘yellow threat’, and the 1960s-to the present for the ‘model minority’ construction. In elucidating the origins and role of these constructions, I will demonstrate that present-day perceptions of Asian peoples have not emerged in a historical vacuum. Rather, the accepted notions (that is accepted by the non-Asian majority of the United States, excluding an overtly racist minority, neo-Nazis/white supremacists and so forth) of Asian people as ‘hard workers’, ‘diligent’, ‘intelligent’, ‘industrious’ and ‘obedient’, that fuel the dominant ‘model minority’ myth of contemporary US society, are indeed largely-rooted in historical perceptions and portrayals of Asian people, and that the way Asians have been characterized by White America has consistently positioned them above other minorities but below Euro-Americans.
Early European perceptions of Asian peoples
Prior to the first major ‘wave’ of Asian migration to the US in the mid-nineteenth century, there was little in the way of a cogent characterization of an Asian ‘other’ in the country. However one source of information (and possibly influence) on Asia and Asian peoples did exist for White Americans prior to the close-contact that began with increased Asian migration from the 1850s onwards. Before Americans had experienced direct contact through an experience with migrants and sizeable migrant communities, they had the writing of predominantly European, but also North American missionaries, to China, India and Japan.
In a series of letters to his co-religionists and fellow missionaries in Europe and India, St. Francis Xavier, recounted his passage to Japan and recorded his observations of Japanese life, culture and people, one of the first Europeans to do so (Ellis 2003, p156)1 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote1sym). In Xavier’s opinion, the people of Japan exceeded all non-Europeans through their “goodness, honor, and politeness”, and also because “they are a gemte bramqua [white people] (Ellis 2003, p156). As well as providing his impressions of Japan, Xavier also wrote back to Europe concerning other Asian-nations, principally China and India:
“Opposite to Japan lies China, an immense empire, enjoying profound peace, and which, as the Portuguese merchants tell us, is superior to all Christian states in the practice of justice and equity.”
Xavier also observes that the Chinese, like the Japanese were “white in colour, acute, and eager to learn” (Iryie & McNeil 1971, p29). The accounts of other missionaries are on the whole highly complimentary, at some points the praise becomes almost satirical, “They are as prudent as could be desired”, and “more inquisitive than any other people I have met” (Cooper 1965, p40). The commentaries project the Japanese in a image of supreme nobility, they’re polite, grumble little and envy nobody (Cooper 1965, p40)
Another characteristic of the Japanese that European missionaries make repeated mention of is their control of emotion. According to missionaries, in Japan, outward emotional expressions, such as of anger- are largely suppressed or contained. This emotional control impressed the Europeans, who received it as sign of great patience and mildness, in which aspects the Japanese were said to be “superior to all other people” (Cooper 1965, p45).
Japanese women were also praised heavily in the missionaries’ writings. Valignanon described them as being of “excellent character”, “very polite” and having “less defects than any other person I have met” (Cooper 1965, p40). Moreover, the obedience and discipline of Japanese women (but also Japanese culture more generally) is also emphasized, “they may be trusted completely for they are the most uprights and faithful women in the whole word” (Cooper 1965, p40). The children of Japan are excluded from this praise, like their parents they’re also regarded as “respectful and polite”, and even as children they are said to show an incredible level maturity, such that the missionary Valignano remarked: “they seem more like solemn men than children” (Cooper 1965, p43).
As can bee seen from the language of the above selection, early European constructions of Asia tended towards romanticism (a tendency which persists to a degree today). Asia and its people are framed to accentuate their difference from Europe and Europeans, though these are not necessarily positive-negative binaries. The Japanese for example, are consistently held to be ‘superior’ in many aspects of manners and etiquette, even when compared to Europeans. The geographic distance and supplementary European ignorance of Asian peoples and cultures further fed highly essentialised and at times mystical depictions of ‘The Orient’.
The ornate language used to describe the people of Japan, over-flowing with lavish compliment often articulated in the definite, ‘they surely are superior to all in this regard’, ‘the most upright and faithful in the world’ and so forth, reads like cultural infatuation. Nevertheless the inhabitants of this idyllic ‘Orient’ constructed by Europeans, are genuinely regarded, as people of intelligence, polite, and respectful, and even in the case of China and Japan, as ‘white’. Why then in the centuries that followed, were Asian peoples so dramatically re-cast? What motivated this transition from the charmingly foreign, to the dangerously foreign?
The shift away from the exotic and idyllic Asia of sixteenth and seventeenth century European writings has its origins in the rapid industrialization and technological development that occurred in Western Europe, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This process elevated many Western European nations into world powers, and thus radically elevated their own self-image, but also changed their perception of the rest of the world. When once, Western Europeans had remarked with awe at the rich culture, size and wealth of the ‘Orient’ and it’s empires, now an expanding and ever more powerful Western world began to see this same ‘Orient’ as stagnate and backward, both in technological and cultural terms. The growing disparity in power and technology that was evident between Western Europe and Asia was attributed by many Europeans to the inherent superiority of ‘Western civilisation’ (alternatively termed ‘White civilisation’). This developmental racism would be crystallized in the White Man’s Burden2 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote2sym), a mentality which supported and indeed fueled Euro-American imperialism abroad.
The late nineteenth century also saw the rise of Social Darwinism (‘scientific racism’) which lent a greater legitimacy to the ideas of racial taxonomy and the hierarchy of ‘human progress’ (civilization) that had emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century. Also at this time, a newly independent US was undergoing a period of growth in technology and economic power, and this was coupled with an expansion of national borders. By treaty, conquest and colonization, the US expanded its national borders westward, to what is now known as the state of California.
The shift from charmingly foreign to the dangerously foreign was thus possible because of the growth in Western global power and dominance. This dominance was in turn explained and justified by an increasingly racialised understanding of human society. It was a hierarchy which held Western culture to be the apex of human ‘progress’ and achievement, and thus as consequence regarded ‘other’ cultures and peoples as markedly backward. In this context of Euro-Americancentrism the first major influx of Asian migrants in to the US occurred, the result was a racialised rhetoric of ‘yellow’ inferiority and backwardness- the ‘yellow threat’.
A duel ‘threat’, Chinese and African-Americans
Curiously, before the Asian-specific ‘yellow threat’ construction dominated discourse on Chinese migration, the first step in constructing a racialised Euro-American perception of the Chinese (and by the homogenizing nature of Euro-American constructions- Asians in America more generally), was to directly identify this new Asian minority with the already established African-American population.
In a New York Times article published shortly after the Civil War both groups were presented as potential threats to the prevailing social order- to ‘republicanism’: “We have four million degraded negroes [sic] in the South… and if there was a flood-tide of Chinese population… we should be prepared to bid farewell to republicanism" (Takaki 1980, p216).
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle positioned indentured Chinese labourers (termed ‘coolies’) as the contemporary equivalent of the African slave, and in turn condemned both as an enemy of ‘free labour’ (that is, white labour): "When the coolie [sic] arrives here he is as rigidly under the control of the contractor who brought him as ever an African slave was under his master” (Takaki 1980, p216).
Moreover, the language used to denigrate African-Americans was often appropriated to describe the Chinese, and even the ‘racial qualities’ of African-Americans became the ‘racial qualities’ of the Chinese people. This homogenization of Asian and African Americans as a minority ‘other’ is evident in an editorial published in the San Francisco Alta: "Every reason that exists against the toleration of free blacks in Illinois may be argued against that of the Chinese here" (Takaki 1980, p217).
Like Blacks, the Chinese were regarded as morally inferior ‘heathens’, ‘savage’ and ‘child-like’, ‘lustful’ and ‘sensual’ (Takaki 1980, p217). Some even went as far as racially linking African-American and Chinese women. For instance, the supposed ‘depravity’ of Chinese women was associated with their ‘almost African’ like physical appearance, according to one source their ‘physiognomy’3 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote3sym) indicated "but a slight removal from the African race”(Takaki 1980, p217).
In fact, the alleged ‘depravity’ of Chinese women was matched in white racial discourse only by the supposed perversion of Chinese men, who like African-American men were regarded as a sexual threat to white women. Writing for Scribner's Monthly, Sarah Henshaw warned white women of this danger: "No matter how good a Chinaman [sic] may be, ladies never leave their children with them, especially little girls” (Takaki 1980, p217). One particularly potent aspect of this construction of moral depravity is the image of the opium den. This popular scene (pictured above) was a hedonistic combination of illicit sex and drug-use, often miscegenation4 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote4sym) was incorporated in to these images to add to the overall sense of moral outrage, playing particularly to the chauvinism of the white male.
By initially associating the Chinese with African-Americans, the white population had created a homogenised racial ‘other’. This process reinforced the position of inferiority that had been designated for not only Asians, but African-Americans as well. Whilst there was a concerted effort to denigrate Asian people as ‘just another’ inferior and foreign ‘heathen race’, a distinction quickly developed that set Asians a part from other minorities. Although this distinction maintained the foundational ideas of Asian inferiority that had developed from the appropriation of anti-black racism, it went further, and separated the two groups on their perceived levels of intelligence, and their ability as workers (with Asians regarded as superior in both). This distinction in turn, asserted an even more inferior position for non-Asian minorities in the US, who were now not only regarded as inferior to whites, but to Asians as well.5 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote5sym)
The birth of a ‘model minority’? The Chinese and ‘racist love’
Whilst Whites regarded African-Americans as “bungling” workers, “ignorant” and “brutish”, the Chinese were generally held to be ‘intelligent’ (though still inferior to whites), “well behaved”, “obedient” and “dexterous” (Takaki 1980, p219, p239). In an article written in 1869 by the editor of the Vicksburg Times, it was asserted that emancipation had “spoiled” African-Americans as labourers, carrying them “away from the fields of agriculture” (Takaki 1980, p219).
This loss of a relatively abundant, reliable and exploitable labour force was seen by many as a threat to the future prosperity of the nation. For capitalists in a burgeoning US economy, the solution to this problem lay in the importation of Chinese workers.
However, another and in many ways portentous suggestion, was to use Chinese labourers, not as a replacement force for African Americans, but to ‘improve’ them. In this view, the hard-working, disciplined and economical Chinese could be used as model of discipline and dexterity, to ‘reform’ the African-American labour force (Takaki 1980, p219). This proposal although it did not come to fruition, was the first articulation of the notion of Asians as a ‘model minority’. In this concept, the ‘model’ (Chinese) serves as an active example for other less successful minority groups, it reflects the ‘bedrock values’ of the US (white values), and its members become shining examples of what one can achieve with a good attitude and work ethic.
The comparison of Asian and African-American workers, and in turn the positive framing and preference for the former over the latter, has been termed by contemporary Asian activists and academics as ‘racist love’. In the rhetoric of ‘racist love’, a minority group (in this case Asian-Americans) is imbued by popular white perceptions, with seemingly positive characteristics – that is ‘positive’ racism- ‘Asians are good at math’s’, ‘Asians are hard workers’ and so forth. Often this rhetoric takes an explicitly complimentary tone (as in the 16th-17th century missionary writings), where the designated group is praised for what are perceived to be venerable and inherent traits.
In the case of Asian-Americans the consistent rhetoric of this ‘racist love’ is Asian ‘intelligence’, ‘obedience’, ‘discipline’ and ‘hard-work’- and indeed these characteristics form a consistent part of Western constructions of Asianness be they from 16th century missionaries or 21st journalists or politicians. ‘Racist love’ in its modern form aligns Asian-Americans with Whites (in opposition to other minorities), equating Asian and ‘American’ values (consisting of ideas like respectfulness, patriotism, importance of family, and a hard-working ‘boot-strap’ mentality), whilst simultaneously maintaining Asian people in a position of difference (Ellis 2003, p156), as still not really ‘white’- despite their achievements.
Origins of the ‘yellow threat’
However, the ‘racist love’ of American capitalists for Chinese labour did not represent the majority white view on Asian migration. The ‘yellow threat’ as a perception of Chinese workers (and by extension Asian workers) in the US developed quickly as the migrant population grew. Between 1850 and 1880, the Chinese population in the US grew by fourteen times, that is from 7 520 people in 1850 to 105 465 people in 1880 (Takaki 1980, p216). The increase in migration was due firstly to the conditions that prevailed in China during this period, the majority of Chinese migrants were poor farmers from the southern province of Guangdong, which like much of China had been devastated by a series of wars, rebellions (including the Taiping 1850-1864 and Nian 1853-1868), famine and floods (Campi 2004, Online).
The other factor motivating this influx was the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and the Gold Rush (1848-1858) that followed. During this period, thousands of Chinese migrants were used, mostly as indentured labourers in construction projects in and around the gold mines, most notably from 1865-1868, as workers on the Central Pacific Railroad (Campi 2004, Online). Others however worked as domestic servants or cooks, some became carpenters, and others worked in factories making boots, cigars, and clothing (Kung 1962, p67).
The amount of workers that arrived, their flexibility and most importantly their economy, made them an ideal labour force for the burgeoning economy of the western US. On the other hand, this comparative advantage became a source of resentment for white workers. An intelligent, hard-working, competitive and cheap labour source ‘threatened’ the livelihood of working class whites. In contrast to Chinese workers, Whites demanded much higher wages and were more likely to strike for better conditions. If there was to be a ‘flood’ of Asian workers into the US, in this view- they would drive down wages, supplant workers in strike and over-time perhaps even replace white labour entirely6 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote6sym).
Indeed by 1870 the popularity of Chinese labourers amongst the capitalists of California was apparent, despite only constituting of 8.6 per cent of the population, Chinese labourers consisted 25 per cent of the wage-earning work force (Takaki 1980, p216). This development proved unacceptable to most white workers, and ‘the Chinese must go!’ became the catch-cry of the nascent Chinese exclusion movement.
The early White American construction of ‘Asianness’, that had relied heavily on drawing comparisons of the Chinese with existing minority groups had evolved quickly into what became more distinctly, the ‘yellow threat’. This new construction maintained the racialised images of an Asian ‘other’ that had existed before and during the early part of the 1850s, but added a new imperative to its rhetoric.
Not only were the Chinese to be regarded as ‘heathens’, as a sexual threat to white women, a threat to republicanism, as opium addicts, as ‘treacherous’ and as ‘cowardly’ (Takaki 1980, p245) - the totality of all Asian stereotypes to this point - but now their evident success as workers, their intelligence, competitiveness and their willingness to work for lower wages, positioned them above all others as the major threat to the white working class. This image more than any other, defined Asian workers, and White American constructions of ‘Asianness’- in this period.
The logical conclusion of these attitudes (the ‘yellow threat’), was that unless the Chinese could excluded or otherwise expelled from the US, they would continue to undermine the position of the white working class, corrupting white women and society with their ‘oriental vices’. Thus in 1882, bowing to popular pressure, the congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act7 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote7sym), making it unlawful for Chinese labourers to enter the US, and furthermore, barred all Chinese nationals currently in the country from obtaining US citizenship (Takaki 1980, p221). Although this new act was created to as only a temporary ban, it was repeatedly extended beyond its initial range of operation and then in 1904, was made permanent.
World War II and re-evaluating American constructions of ‘Asianness’
Although the Chinese had been first the Asians ever to be specifically barred from immigration into the US, ironically they also would also become the first to be made eligible for naturalization. In 1943 the Magnuson Act repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, once again allowing Chinese migrants into the US, and also for first the time allowing an Asian people to become naturalized citizens. It was expedient for the US to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act because the Chinese were now an active ally of the US in the war against Japan, thus repealing the act was essentially a gesture of good faith between the two nations (Kung 1962, p106).
However decades of legalized racism and anti-Chinese prejudice had established a broad anti-Asianism in US society. Indeed, the Magnuson Act and the pro-Chinese World War II propaganda that followed, was the first challenge to anti-Chinese racism ever made on any significant level by the US government. Indeed the racism that had been fostered in California, which had culminated in anti-Chinese rioting and then ultimately in the Chinese Exclusion Act proved hard for the US to move past, despite attempts to endear White America to their new WWII allies from the ‘Orient’.
In terms of White American constructions of Asians during the war period, the transfer of what once were essentially anti-Chinese images and constructions to a new enemy, although successful in demonizing the Japanese, largely failed to counter-balance this invigorated anti-Asianism with any effective pro-Chinese campaign. Indeed attacks on Chinese and Chinese-American citizens in the US were so common that the Chinese consulate was forced issue identification buttons for its citizens in order to help White distinguish their Chinese allies from their Japanese enemies (Life Magazine 1941, Online). Furthermore, Life Magazine published a series of instructional articles to this end, including “How to tell Japs from the Chinese” and “How to tell your friends from the Japs” (Life Magazine 1941, Online).
Chinese diagram Japanese diagram
Above: An instructional diagram outlining differences in facial features between the Chinese and Japanese, from “How to tell Japs from the Chinese” (Life Magazine 1941, Online)
In “How to tell your friends from the Japs”, the magazine outlined physical descriptions comparing Chinese and Japanese people. As well as the physical ‘rules of thumb’, the magazine added: “The Chinese expression is likely to be more placid, kindly, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant”; “Japanese are hesitant, nervous in conversation”, and “…walk stiffly and hard-heeled.” (Life Magazine 1941 (2), Online)
(Douglas Aircraft Company, Online) (Anonymous 1942, Online)
Above: Two war time anti-Japanese propaganda posters; the first played to the popular stereotyping of the physical appearance of Asian peoples; the second played to the idea of a sexual threat to white women posed by Asian men and long attributed to the Chinese, now with a Japan soldier pictured with a naked white woman slung over his shoulder.
Post-World War II developments
Although the WWII experience had been in many ways a renaissance of anti-Asianism in the US, at the same time it did provide an opportunity for real Asian integration into American society, which had until this time proven to be virtually impossible. Just as the role and rights of white women in Western countries had improved during and after the war, the strain that war had put on the US labour force meant that for the first time Chinese college women and men began to secure proper and more diversified employment (Kung 1962, p57). The repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act and granting of naturalization rights to Chinese migrants also provided a greater opportunity for education in the Chinese community, more and more Chinese-Americans enrolled in college in the post-WWII period than had ever before (Kung 1962, p57).
The repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act also helped to pave the way for Asians of other nationalities to become eligible for immigration and in turn naturalization (Kung 1962, p106). First Filipinos and Indians were granted entry and naturalization rights, and then later following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, racial distinctions were removed from US immigration system entirely. However, to head off protest by Asian-exclusionists a national-quota system was erected in its place. The small quotas assigned to Asian nation’s effectively limited Asian migration until the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, which abolished the national quota system.
The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 laid the ground work for the contemporary US immigration scheme, and in so doing rejuvenated the Asian-American population whose numbers had been dwindling after over half a century of Asian exclusion. In this same period (late 1960s-early 1970s), the civil rights movement had begun to win greater civil and political rights for not only African-Americans, but all other minority groups.
The social catharsis provided by the civil rights and broader student radical and counter-cultural movements, as well as the growing prestige of Japan and China as world powers (Daniels 1988, p323), combined to generate an overall shift away from the overt racism of previous decades. Largely due to this social catharsis, the US of the 1960s and 1970s became more cosmopolitan and tolerant, although by no means free of racism or prejudice, the large-scale and overt anti-Asianism that had characterized the US for over hundred and fifty years began to erode- the stage was now set for the emergence of the Asian-American ‘success story’.
Beyond the ‘yellow threat’- The emergence of the modern ‘model minority’
The term ‘model minority’ was first applied to Asian-Americans in its contemporary usage by demographer-sociologist William Petersen in his “Success story, Japanese American style”, published in the New York Times Magazine on January 6, 1966 (Daniels 1988, p318). Then a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, Peterson’s article was a response to the counter-cultural student radicalism of the time, he was calling for a return to ‘traditional’ American values which he causally linked with the “unparalleled” ascendancy of Japanese Americans (Daniels 1988, p319).
In the article Peterson used the phrase ‘model minority’ firstly as a way of to praise Japanese Americans: “By any criterion of good citizenship that we choose, the Japanese Americans are better than any other group in our society, including native-born whites” (Daniels 1988, p319); and secondly as a way of asserting a status of inferiority to other less successful minority groups.
In Peterson’s words, Japanese-Americans had established this “remarkable record”, “by their own almost totally unaided effort”, his praise of the supposed ‘boot-strap’ mentality of Japanese-Americans was a criticism of African-Americans and Latinos who had begun to push for and in Peterson’s point of view rely on, preferential government programs and policies, such as affirmative action (Shu 2005, p88).
Rather than rely on the help of the government, Peterson argued that ‘under-achieving’ minority groups should follow the example (the ‘model’) of Japanese-Americans, of their hard-work and dedication. As a group they had “overcame prejudice” and even WWII interment (Daniels 1988, p319), to become one of the countries most successful ethnic communities.
Although Peterson had initially included Chinese and other Asian-Americans in his reference to ‘under-achieving’ minorities, by the early 1970s the term ‘model minority’ had been extended to cover all Asian-American groups (Shu 2005, p88). In the 1980s ‘Asian values’ (the ‘values’ that underwrote the success of the ‘model minority’) gained political and cultural currency, as Asian-American ‘success stories’ became popular in the US media.
For example, Bruce Nelson in “Asians come on strong” published in the Los Angeles Times October 10 1982,lauded "people of Asian ancestry" as "the nation’s best-educated and highest-income racial group" (Daniels 1988, p322). In a feature article published in Newsweek on December 6 1982, Petersen’s ‘model minority’ phrase was directly appropriated in the headline, "Asian-Americans: A 'Model Minority'" (Daniels 1988, p322).
As Asian-Americans grasped the potentials of a more open and tolerant society, the percentage attending college and obtaining degrees increased rapidly. In 1981 Harvard university professor Stephan Thernstrom described "Oriental students [sic]" as "the most hard-working, disciplined people imaginable. ... I don't know when they sleep” (Daniels 1988, p322). In 1984, President Ronald Reagan, in a White House speech to a delegation of Asian-Americans, praised the Asian-American community for helping to "preserve that dream by living up to the bedrock values" (Shu 2005, p88) of the US and upholding the principles of "the sacred worth of human life, religious faith, community spirit” and the “responsibility of parents and schools to be teachers of tolerance, hard work, fiscal responsibility, cooperation, and love" (Shu 2005, p88).
In this speech ‘Asian values’ have been used by Reagan and equated to American values or ‘White values’. The ‘values’ needed for success are put forward as the dominant white values, and thus in this regard Asian-Americans become almost de facto ‘white’- by virtue of ‘value’-determined prosperity.
A recent illustration of the ‘model minority’ construction operating in contemporary US society can be found in a 2005 study of the role and presentation of Asian-Americans in prime-time television. The study observed firstly, that Asians like Latinos, were under-represented, despite making up 5 per cent of the US population, Asians played only 2.7 per cent of regular television characters (Texeira 2005, Online). Secondly, when Asians were depicted in TV shows, they were placed in roles that reinforced the image of Asian-Americans as a “hyper-intelligent model minority” (Texeira 2005, Online). Although Census 2000 data showed that at present half of Asian-American adults do not have tertiary degrees, the study observed that of the Asian-American characters whose jobs were identified in prime time TV shows, “100 percent worked in areas that highlighted their intelligence or required advanced degrees” (Texeira 2005, Online).
Conclusion
White American constructions of ‘Asianness’ have in some ways changed dramatically and in others very little over the course of major Asian and American contact. However there is a basis of continuity which can be identified in the historical development of ‘Asianness’ in the US. Early European romanticism emphasized the rich culture and character of Asian peoples, their intelligence, respectfulness and politeness were held with high regard. As the self-image of Euro-Americans improved so their perceptions of other cultures and peoples declined.
The ‘goodness of character’ described in early Western constructions of ‘Asianness’ gave way to a crude depiction of Asian ‘savagery’, of ‘utter heathens’ who were ‘vile’ and ‘treacherous’. These images, adopted in the US, were in turn modified as the usefulness of Asians as labourers became apparent.
American capitalists identified the intelligence and hard-working ‘nature’ of Asian peoples as the major reason for their success as labourers, they could adapt well to intelligent and skilled enough to adapt to advances in production – and most importantly, they were economical. This development drew, albeit to a limited extent, on the ‘racist love’ of the sixteenth century European missionaries (an industrious and intelligent Asian ‘other’).
Following WWII and the radicalism and immense social change of the 1960s and 1970s, American constructions of ‘Asianness’ had come almost full-circle, with a return to the praise-laden rhetoric of the European missionaries. In this the modern period, Asian peoples were constructed as the ‘model minority’, the historical continuation of all previously positive Western constructions.
Asians were again of ‘good character’ (like they had been in the sixteenth century), their intelligence and ‘industrious nature’ were again sources of praise as they had been for White capitalists in the mid-nineteenth century and the earlier European writers before them. Thus the modern notion of Asian-Americans as a ‘model minority’ has not emerged from a historical vacuum.
Rather the Western perception of Asians as ‘hard workers’, ‘diligent’, ‘intelligent’, ‘industrious’, ‘polite’ and ‘obedient’, that underwrite this modern myth, is rooted in a process of process of Western de/construction of ‘Asianness’ and ‘Asian values’ spanning some four-centuries.
The final aspect to the Asian-American narrative is that of ‘racist love’. As a recurring theme it establishes a dichotomy between Asian and non-Asian minorities in the US, particularly African-Americans. This dichotomy has been consistently reinforced over time by white attitudes into a national racial hierarchy. This hierarchy positions non-Asian minorities as inferior to both Whites and to Asian-Americans, who are held up as by this narrative as the only ‘success stories’ of American society. In this way, White American constructions of ‘Asianness’ have served as a tool to not only keep Asian-Americans separate from White society, but from all other non-Asian Americans as well.
Bibliography
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Author unknown, Cartoon: San Francisco Chinatown Opium Den – 1870's [Online], The virtual museum of the city of San Francisco, Available: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/den.html (http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/den.html) [2005, May 13].
Campi, A. 2004, “Eating Bitterness”: The Impact of Asian-Pacific Migration on U.S. Immigration Policy [Online], American Immigration Law Foundation, Available: http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2004_eatingbitterness.asp [2005, May 12].
Cooper, M (ed.). 1965, They came to Japan: an anthology of European reports on Japan 1543-1640, Thames and Hudson, London, pp37-48
Daniels, R. 1988, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850, University of Washington Press, Seattle, p98, pp318-323
Douglas Aircraft Company. Cartoon: Tokio Kid Say [Online], National Archives, Available: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Tokio_Kid_Say.gif (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Tokio_Kid_Say.gif) [2005, May 12].
Ellis, R.R. 2003, ‘The best thus far discovered: The Japanese in the letters of Francisco Xavier’, Hispanic Review, Volume 71, No 2, Spring, p156.
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Kung, S.W. 1962, Chinese in America life: some aspects of their history, status, problems and contributions, University of Washington Press, Seattle, p52, p57, p67, p106
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1 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote1anc) The first Europeans to reach Japan were Portuguese sailors who shipwrecked there in either 1542 or 1543 (Ellis 2003, p156).
2 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote2anc) A 1899 poem written by Rudyard Kipling. The poem presents a fundamentally euro-centric point of view, that implores the nations of Western Europe to bring ‘civilisation’ (white society/culture) to the ‘savages’ succinctly- a call for Western imperialism.
3 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote3anc) Physiognomy is the practice of judging the ‘nature’ or ‘character’ of a person by their facial features. In this context the alleged similarities between the facial features of African and Chinese women, was held as the explanation for their common ‘perversion’ and moral inferiority.
4 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote4anc) Underlying this depiction of miscegenation was the suggestion that dominance of Chinese labour, which resulted in unemployment and poverty for white worker, was forcing white women in sexual slavery, as well as the more general suggestion that even the presence of the Chinese perverted the social and moral fabric of white society.
5 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote5anc) This paradigm is used again the in late twentieth-century, when Asian-Americans are lauded as the ‘model minority’ and relatively equal to whites in social values and economic status. In so doing, non-Asian minorities, predominantly African-Americans and Latinos, are regarded implicitly as failures. This re-asserts their position of inferiority in the national racial hierarchy, below Asian and White Americans.
6 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote6anc) These fears were acted out a 1879 play The Chinese Must Go, by Henry Grimm
7 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#sdfootnote7anc) Interestingly in 1907, the US and Japan made what is now called the Gentlemen's Agreement, an informal arrangement by which Japan ‘voluntarily’ restricted the immigration of its citizens, by refusing to grant any passports to nationals wishing to work in the US. As a developing power, Japan was enjoying a rejuvenation of its global image, boosted by its recent victory in the Russo-Japanese war. The passing of a Japanese Exclusion Act could be incredibly embarrassing for the nation and its international image. In a context of growing US anti-Asianism, which had culminated in the indefinite extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1904, Japan thus chose to ‘voluntarily’ and migration of its citizens to the US- effectively ending Asian migration to the American mainland for the immediate future.
See this also:
[quote]
Myth: Asian-Americans are a model minority.
Fact: Asian-American immigrants to the U.S. have been highly self-selected.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/2clorbar.JPG
Summary
Asian immigrants to the U.S. tend to be already highly educated and from the middle or upper class, for a number of reasons. Thus, they get a completely different start in life in the U.S. compared to other minorities. Although Asians achieve a much greater degree of success in the U.S., the "model minority" stereotype is a myth because Asian-Americans still bump into the glass ceiling, receive lower pay even with the same qualifications, and have higher poverty rates. The image of boat people escaping the ravages of war and communism to take full advantage of American opportunities is also a myth, in that Southeast Asians actually have the lowest success rate of all Asians.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/2clorbar.JPG
Argument
Supporters of affirmative action argue that discrimination and racism have held down minorities in the U.S., and that affirmative action is needed to correct it. In response, critics ask: "If blacks and Mexicans are being held down by discrimination, then why do Asians come to this country and do so well for themselves?" According to this myth, Asians immigrate to America with little or nothing, often as boat people fleeing communism, and through hard study and work become even more successful than European-Americans. Their success would suggest that the U.S. does not really discriminate against minorities.
Supporters of the "model minority" myth cite many statistics in their favor. For example, among college-bound seniors in 1989, Asian-Americans had a high school grade point average of 3.25, compared to 3.08 for all other students. A study of 7,836 high school students in the San Francisco area found that Asian-Americans spent 40 percent more time doing homework than non-Asians, a fairly common finding. (1)
Asian-Americans also have higher levels of education and income:
Educational attainment by ethnic group (1990) (2)
Completed 4 years or more of:
-----------------------------
Ethnic group* High School College
-------------------------------------
Asian 80.4% 39.9%
White 79.1 22.0
Black 66.2 11.3
Hispanic 50.8 9.2
Median family income, by ethnic group (1993) (3)
Asian $44,456
White 39,300
Hispanic 23,654
Black 21,542 (For brevity's sake, "Asian" in this essay includes Pacific Islanders, and "Hispanic" includes Spanish, Cuban, Puerto-Rican and Mexican Americans.)
The model minority myth
Although it is true that an unusually high percentage of Asian-Americans have enjoyed success in the United States, large parts of the "model minority" stereotype are a myth, and cannot be used in debates on affirmative action.
We should first note that Asian-Americans form one of our smallest minorities:
U.S. Population, by ethnic group (1994) (4)
Whites 74.0%
Blacks 12.0
Hispanics 10.0
Asian 3.2 When the percentage is this small, many factors can skewer the composition of a minority. Indeed, this turns out to be the case.
Unlike blacks, Asians have migrated to the U.S. voluntarily. The forced capture and transport of Africans means that the U.S. black population is more likely to be a true cross section of African society, whereas Asians, who migrate voluntarily, tend to be self-selected. What type of voluntary immigrant would take residence in the U.S.? Naturally, those who could afford to make the trip. For immigrants from neighboring nations, like Mexico, this is relatively easy, a matter of crossing a land border. Again, this would tend to make the U.S. Hispanic population a true cross section of its original society. Asians, however, must be able to afford a trans-oceanic journey. Not surprisingly, those who could afford such a trip would tend to belong to their homeland's middle and upper classes.
In a thorough study of Houston's Asian American population, Dr. Stephen Klineberg confirmed what sociologists have long known about the advantaged backgrounds of Asian immigrants. "The survey makes it clear that Asians have been relatively successful in Houston primarily due to the educations and middle class backgrounds they brought with them from their countries of origin," Klineberg says. "One of the key messages from the survey is that we have to discard the 'model minority' stereotype that is so often applied to Asians in America. [It overlooks] the fact that a high proportion of Asian immigrants come from an occupational and educational elite." (5)
Furthermore, U.S. immigration policy has long been discriminatory, favoring immigrants with professional skills and higher education. (6) This policy began as early as 1907, when President Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese government negotiated a "Gentlemen's Agreement" restricting the exit of unskilled Japanese laborers to the United States. (7) Asian immigration has been heavily restricted for most of this century, and has only recently become liberalized.
Other aspects of the myth
The above income chart shows that Asians make the nation's highest median family income. But this statistic doesn't tell the whole story. Asian families have a higher percentage of their members employed in the workforce, so their family income is naturally higher. Also, the U.S. Census does not distinguish between Japanese-American citizens and Japanese residents in the U.S. who maintain their Japanese citizenship. Therefore, this figure includes many highly paid Japanese businessmen in the U.S. on extended business. (8)
Asian-Americans aspiring to job promotion are also familiar with the "glass ceiling." According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Asian-American men born in the United States are 7 percent to 11 percent less likely to hold managerial jobs than white men with the same educational and experience level. Median income for Asian-Americans with four years of college education is $34,470 a year, compared with $36,130 for whites, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (9)
Also, many people who buy into the "model minority" myth do not realize that income inequality is severe within the Asian-American community. In 1994, the individual Asian-American poverty rate was 15.3 percent, compared to a national rate of 14.5 percent, and a white rate of 12.2 percent. (10) In fact, the poverty rate for Asians in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York is nearly twice as high as that of whites. (11) Leaders of the Asian-American community complain that, because of the "model minority" myth, their poverty programs have been drastically underfunded compared to other communities. Thus, needy cries for help among Asian-Americans are going unmet.
Many who subscribe to the "model minority" myth also presume that Asia is a homogeneous society with a shared family and work ethic. Actually, Asia is a land of 27 different countries, sharply delineated by oceans, culture, language, religion and economic systems. This produces wide disparities in the success of Asian immigrants. The following chart shows the percentage of Asian-Americans over twenty-five years of age who have completed four or more years of college and who live below the poverty line:
Asian group Poverty level (12)
----------------------------
Laotian 67.2%
Hmong 65.5
Cambodian 46.9
Vietnamese 33.5
Indonesian 15.2 Notice these groups come from Southeast Asia. Many believers in the "model minority" myth claim that Asians have succeeded so well in America because they escaped the ravages of war and communism, and are thus highly motivated to take full advantage of the opportunities offered in America. However, the above chart gives lie to this myth.
It is true that many Asian cultures, like China and Japan, have traditionally placed a very high value on education. However, Asians have historically used education to create an intellectual caste system. Those who proved themselves went on to receive more education, while those who failed were relegated to menial labor. Higher education was not a universal right, but a test of caste membership. As we have shown above, Asian immigrants to the U.S. tend to come from the middle and upper classes.
Finally, there are many who believe that Asians excel because they have the highest IQs in the world. But there is no evidence to support this assertion. One study, conducted by Harold Stevenson, tested the IQs of children in Japan, China and America, carefully matching them for socioeconomic status and demographic variables. He found no differences in IQ. (13) Another set of studies conducted by Richard Lynn supposedly found a higher IQ in Asians, but his research has been heavily criticized on methodological grounds -- among other problems, his Asian test group was tiny and unrepresentative of the population at large. (14)
In the U.S. during the early 1900s, Asians -- like Jews -- scored much lower on IQ tests than native whites. Their tests scores improved over time as highly educated immigrants continued arriving in the U.S., and their social positions improved. (15)
Implications for affirmative action
The model minority myth does a disservice to Asian-Americans, because it suggests they do not need, nor could benefit from, affirmative action. As we have seen, the glass ceiling exists for this minority as well, not to mention the poverty and income inequality that afflict all other groups of Americans. Unfortunately, the myth blinds others to these realities.
[B]
Endnotes:
1. Lieutenant Commander James G. Foggo, III, U.S. Navy, "Review of Data on Asian-Americans," Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, May 1993.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population, U.S. Summary, PC80-1-C1 and Current Population Reports P20-455, P20-459, P20-462, P20-465RV, P20-475; and unpublished data.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P60-188.
4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data.
5. Stephen Klineberg, "First Houston Area Asian Survey Explodes the 'Model Minority' Stereotype and Explains the City's Changing Demographics," Press Release, Rice University, Office of Development, March 8, 1996.
6. American Writing Corporation, "Research Briefs on Poverty: Poverty and Asian Americans," Equal Opportunity for the Urban Poor Program, National Community Building Network, Rockefeller Foundation.
7. Foggo.
8. Ibid.
9. Carolyn Jung, "Asian-Americans Say They Run into Glass Ceiling," San Jose Mercury News, September 10, 1993, p. 1B.
10. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Asian-American rate: P20-459 and unpublished data; U.S. rate: P-60 series; white American rate: P20-480 and unpublished data.
11. Nancy Rivera Brooks, "Study Attacks Belief in Asian-American Affluence, Privilege," San Jose Mercury News, May 19, 1994, p. 1A.
12. Foggo.
13. Harold Stevenson et al., "Cognitive performance of Japanese, Chinese, and American Children," Child Development 56, 1985, pp. 718-34.
14. Charles Lane, "Tainted Sources," pp. 133-5, in Russell Jacoby and Noami Glauberman, eds., The Bell Curve Debate (New York: Random House, 1995).
15. Thomas Sowell, "Ethnicity and IQ," The American Spectator (February, 1995), pp. 32-36http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-aamodel.htm
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